Nokia Networks, ARM and software and services company Enea have established a new initiative that aims to establish an open IP stack for software defined networking (SDN).
The OpenFastPath Foundation is an non-profit, open-source software initiative that will combine technologies from various telco players to help lower technology barriers and standardise TCP/IP stack, thereby helping accelerate the performance of SDN-ready network applications.
According to Nokia Networks, the TCP/IP stack implementation is based on the open-source Free Berkeley Software Distribution operating system. It includes User Datagram Protocol, Transmission Control Protocol, and Internet Control Message Protocol. New functions will be added in the future, the company said.
These will result in reduced IP latency, higher capacity and lower implementation costs for operators, Nokia claimed.
It added that the initiative, which is also supported by AMD, Cavium, Freescale and HP, will provide the opportunity for involved parties to share best practices from existing proprietary IP implementations.
Charlene Marini, Vice President of Segment Marketing at ARM, said: “Collaborative open source initiatives such as the OFP Foundation are fundamental in realising a networking infrastructure built on flexible and heterogeneous compute platforms.Â
“The formation of this foundation adds further momentum to the expanding ecosystem of open source communities that are focused on accelerating network applications through innovation and increased interoperatibility, while reducing fragmentation and time to market.”
Daniel Forsgren, SVP Product Management at Enea AB, added: “Hardware vendors, application developers and system integrators in the networking ecosystem will benefit greatly from OFP as a common high-performance IP stack, and will be able to focus on their respective differentiation.”